People have got this woman’s name wrong all her life – but there’s a twist

People have got this woman’s name wrong all her life – but there’s a twist

Summer Heacock says people getting her name wrong has been a ‘bizarre, long-running cosmic joke’.

(Summer Heacock)

We’ve all been called by the wrong name at some point in our lives but for one woman in the US, things have been much more than an occasional case of mistaken identity.

Summer Heacock, a 37-year-old novelist from Washington, says people have been randomly calling her Heather her whole life – from strangers and friends to her hairdresser and even her doctor.

Adopted when she was just six weeks old, her parents decided to call her Summer but strangely, the name Heather followed her around.

Apart from concluding that it was a weird coincidence, Summer didn’t think much of it until a recent life-changing event made her question whether there was something more to it all, which she describes as “my high bar of weird” in a Twitterthread.

Folks. I am about to share the weirdest tale I’ve ever experienced, even by my high bar of weird.

Born and raised in Indiana, Summer, who now lives with her husband and two children in Washington, says she can’t remember when people first started calling her Heather but her earliest memory of hearing the name was when she was three.

She told the Press Association: “The first time I have a vivid memory of it was when I was three and in pre-school, and the teacher’s assistant called me Heather.

“I didn’t respond, thinking she was talking to someone else, and she was frustrated that I was ignoring her.

“At that time, I was more concerned with having an adult be angry with me than anything else.”

Little did she know at that time that “Heather” was was going to play a more prominent role in her life.

(Summer Heacock)

She said: “Strangers call me Heather. My doctor I had been seeing for years called me Heather. People ask my husband how his wife Heather is doing.

“The salon I went to for seven years wrote out an appointment reminder card to ‘Heather’.

Summer said: “I’d joked for years that maybe the universe was trying to tell me I’d been named Heather when I was in flux between being born and being taken home by my parents when I was about six weeks old, but I never thought that could actually be the reality.

“It was too weird to be real. For the rest of our time together, I kept sort of whisper-shouting, ‘OK, but are you SURE!? HEATHER!?’.”